


a step closer, back into the tide

by 4wholecats



Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Whumptober 2020, prompt: pick who dies, sephiran voice EVERYONE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26877826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4wholecats/pseuds/4wholecats
Summary: The keeper of Hell’s gate raises his staff.“Those doors cannot be opened.”
Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959316
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	a step closer, back into the tide

**Author's Note:**

> everything else i write: gratuitous body horror, gore, and violence  
> my whumptober so far: Lets Get Introspective. Maybe the real whump. Is on the inside.
> 
> someone please kill this bird

Perhaps, if he had been younger, he would have saved more of them. 

Maybe he would have even saved them all; throwing aside this malformed husk of a social experiment and stepping out into the sun, watching it blink at him through the leaves of Serenes’ tallest trees. But those trees are gone now, as gone as his heart is empty, and there’s nothing left to do but move his pieces around on the board in the hopes that eventually, he will finally be alone.

_ “I didn’t even get to hold her!” _

_ He’s sobbing now, and he’s doing it in front of the Dragon King, of all things. He’s clutching at the larger man's robes with his fragile fists, feathers standing on end as he cries. Dheginsea doesn’t push him away, but he doesn’t offer any words of comfort either, standing awkwardly in the halfway where Lehran has him pinned to a pillar with his weak grip. _

_ He wouldn’t know what it was like. _

_ The Dragon King could hold his children whenever he wanted. There were no sacrifices to be made on his part.  _

It’s been so very long. He is so very tired.

_ He watches as Mist holds the door open for Zelgius, who shifts his hold slightly on Elena’s body before entering the house. The little girl runs in after him, chattering as she goes, completely unaware that her life has changed forever, and that her family has been irreversibly damaged.  _

_ The boy, the son, stays completely still, even as the two reappear and carry Gawain in as well. Lehran almost forgets Ike is there.  _

_ At least, until he starts screaming. _

He wanted to say that the feeling started with the smell of flames, but in truth, the hollow ache began decades before that. He watched the world choose who lived and who died based on such arbitrary things, and grew jealous. He grew apathetic. He grew twisted and bent, like a tree sharing space with a sharp iron fence. 

_ He takes full responsibility for Sanaki. She’s barely seven, yet with so much already resting on her small shoulders. He helps her deal with the senate, and he guides her as best as he can. There’s a warm, soft feeling that bubbles in his chest when he reads to her before bed, and when he watches her stand up to all the men who would rather see her dead.  _

_ Love? _

_ Probably. But despite all those moments made more bearable, the tide of apathy always comes back to rest on the shore.  _

_ He’s made his choice.  _

And that’s how he got here. At the top of this death spire. Awaiting victory or death. Synonyms, at this point. When he hears the army clamoring at his gate, he feels his heart twist. But it’s too late now.

The keeper of Hell’s gate raises his staff.

_ “Those doors cannot be opened.” _


End file.
